Like Guardians of the Galaxy, many thought that Marvel was taking a big risk with this year’s Ant-Man starring Paul Rudd and Michael Douglas.
The movie’s development history has been quite a roller coaster. It was originally conceived back in 2006 and was the dream project of critically acclaimed director Edgar Wright, but Wright unexpectedly dropped out last year due to creative differences. While his script was still used for the final project, Marvel hired Peyton Reed to direct the final movie for phase 2 of the Cinematic Universe.
Despite Marvel’s recent successes, audiences weren’t sure how they could make a decent movie where the main hero’s only power is to shrink and talk to ants. But it appears they did, as Ant-Man’s success ended up pretty big with positive reviews and the box office.
Marvel plans to continue the character with an appearance in Captain America: Civil War and a recently announced sequel. But in terms of the movie’s quality, does Ant-Man go big or go home?
Former criminal Scott Lang was recently released from prison and returns home to bad conditions. He wants to spend time with and be a good father to his daughter, Cassie, but doesn’t have the money to support or see her.
He ends up stealing what appears to be a motorcycle suit, but it turns out he was set up by former S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist Hank Pym, who wants him to perform a dangerous task. Hank’s former protégé Darren Cross has developed dangerous technology that rivals his greatest invention, the Ant-Man suit, and plans to sell and manufacture it.
Hank plans to train Scott in mastering the Ant-Man technology and using its power to shrink and command ants to steal the Yellowjacket suit and prevent the wrong people from abusing this power. The movie also delves into Hank’s past and his strained relationship with his daughter Hope, who also assists in training Hank.
It was smart of the writers to decide to set the film up as a heist movie. With all these large scale destruction Marvel movies, like Age of Ultron, it’s nice to have a smaller (no pun intended) sized story that allows for more interactions with these characters and creativity with action.
Scott Lang is a likeable character with understandable motivation, and despite being a criminal, he is hard to hate. Learning Hank’s history behind the Ant-Man suit was also intriguing and I feel it’s fitting for Marvel to end Phase 2 with a movie that focuses on passing the mantle. Some might complain that the movie has a bit of a slow start but given that we’ve never seen these characters before, I think it’s worth it.
The powers make for some entertaining action and fight scenes. It’s like Honey I Shrunk the Kids combined with Mission Impossible. Even though physics majors might have a nightmare about the logic behind how this technology works, there are very well placed shots and moments where you can see and feel the impact of these size-changing objects and people that enhance the experience.
The comedy has a few hits and misses, but Michael Peña stole nearly every scene he was in with his Drunk History style of narrative.
The actors themselves did a great job; Paul as the inexperienced and down on his luck Scott and Catherine Lilly as the unconfident Hope. But as usual, Michael Douglas had the best lines and best scenes in the movie. I may be showing favoritism towards the guy but I’ve rarely ever seen him turn in a bad performance, and this is no exception.
But as with most Marvel movies, don’t expect a compelling or original villain.
Sure, having Cross as a symbolic embodiment of Scott’s mistakes, a good actor, and a slick looking costume sounds great on paper, but he’s the typical evil scientist/businessman with no interesting backstory or motivation and only serves to have a cool fight scene in the film’s climax.
It isn’t the film’s only flaw, but I’m tired of how it’s practically guaranteed at this point that the Marvel movies don’t have good villains outside of Loki and the Winter Soldier.
I would’ve liked to see Hope have a bigger role and it didn’t help with their constant teases, even if Hank’s reasons for preventing her were justifiable (Not to mention a forced romance for a few seconds with Scott).
There were also times where connecting the film to the Cinematic Universe felt a little forced, which was one of the creative differences that led Wright to leave the project. Given Wright’s history with some amazing productions, I can’t help but feel curious as to what his version of the final project would’ve been like.
I feel that Marvel needs to find a certain balance when it comes to connecting films like this to the larger world of the Avengers, as sometimes it can feel forced and the novelty’s wearing a little thin these days. Movies can stand fine on their own without referencing the Avengers every ten minutes, Guardians of the Galaxy proves that.
As a whole though, Ant-Man was a good ride. It was fun, creative, action packed, and had great fight scenes with talented actors.
It carries the standard Marvel problems of forgettable villains and forced connections to the MCU, but then again, it’s worked for pretty much every other Marvel movie in the past.
After the over crowdedness of Age of Ultron and before the spectacle of next year’s Captain America: Civil War, we needed a smaller and more focused film to take a breather, and what better way to do that than with Marvel’s tiniest hero?